This invention relates to vehicles, commonly referred to as tow-trucks or wreckers, which are used for moving broken-down or damaged automobiles and the like.
Commonly, wreckers employ a boom with a winch and cable arrangement for hooking up to a broken down automobile. For towing purposes, it is necessary to hook the cable to the automobile and winch the automobile into elevated inclined towing position immediately behind the wrecker, generally with the front or rear wheels of the automnobile remaining in ground engagement. The forces involved during winching tend to draw the wrecker and automobile toward one another and accordingly the wrecker itself is generally immobilized to prevent its rearward movement during winching. One commonly employed means for preventing rearward movement of a wrecker during winching consists in placing ramp-like elements, known as scotch blocks, under the rear wheels of the wrecker, the scotch blocks being secured by chains to the rear bumper structure of the wrecker. However, with this arrangement, tension is developed in the chains during winching tending to distort or buckle the bumper structure. To overcome this problem, it is known to add reinforcement to the rear structure of the wrecker, but the additional weight of such reinforcement reduces the towing capacity of the wrecker. The present invention provides an alternative solution to the problem of rear bumper damage to wreckers, which does not involve any significant increase in weight and consequent loss in towing capacity.